God and Money
Luke 16: 1-15
Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 20)
Grace, mercy and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ amen. The sermon text for the fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost is our Gospel reading Luke 16. Our Lord’s parable in this text is probably the most difficult one to understand. Why is the Lord praising the shrewdness of the dishonest manager? We will have to spend some time diving into the text to find out. Our Lord also makes a statement that is initially hard to understand. “And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails, they may receive you into the eternal dwellings”. What does that mean? And so, for the next few minutes we are going to take time to unpack this parable to get at its real meaning and in doing so I think it will be of great benefit to you and that it will give you great joy.
In this parable you have a manager, who had been accumulating wealth for himself. He was trusting that the needs of his life and his future were secure in the size of his bank account and in his business dealings. We are told that he started to steal from his master. He wanted more money because that is what he trusted in. The false god that this man had was the money that belonged to his master. Well, you can’t trust in false gods. And money is a false god. It does not care about you. It does not love you. And it will leave you. That is what happened in the parable. The manager trusted in his master’s money but just like that it was gone. The money had abandoned him.
The master found out that the manager had been wasting his possessions and so he called him into the office and took his position away from him. The manager found himself in a terrible situation. Everything he worked for was gone. He was sinking and he did not have a life boat. What was he to do? The manger has been fired. From this point, he is no longer authorized to conduct any business in the name of his master. And if he does, he could be thrown in jail. But notice that the master does not throw him in jail. He could have but he didn’t. He gives him some time to return the books to him. And so, the former manager uses this small amount of time to take advantage of his master’s reputation of being generous. The manager had been trusting in his master’s money, but that was now gone. And now he begins to trust in the thing that he should have trusted in all along: his master’s generosity.
The manager is fired; he knows that, and the master knows that but no one else does. The clients don’t know that he had been fired. And so, one at a time the manager calls the clients and reduces their debt. And then he has them write down the changes with their own handwriting. This is an important detail because the next thing that the manager does is take these changed contracts back to the master. And when he places the books on the master’s desk to review, the master is going to realize two things. First the debts of his clients have been lowered and second the clients know about it because it is in their handwriting.
What is the master going to do? Most people would go back to the clients and tell them that they did not authorize the reduction in their debts. Most people would go to them and say that the manager was a thief and that they would expect regular payments from them. That is what any creditor would do. That is what we would do right? And if that is what he did then the manager’s plan would have collapsed. But he does not do it. Not this master. This master has a reputation of being generous. You now why? Because he is generous.
He looks up at his former manager and says, “Well played.” You knew me. You knew that I would let this stand. The text says, “The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness”. He commended him not because of his dishonesty or his ethics, but because of his shrewdness. When his ship was sinking, he knew which way to jump. He used his master’s generosity to make lots of friends. You know the phrase, “It is not what you know; it’s who you know”.
The manger stopped trusting in his master’s money. He had to. It was gone. And he started trusting in his master’s generosity. And that is the key in understanding this parable. The false god of money will fail. That is why we must look to the Lord and trust Him. The Lord is the one who is generous, and He is the only one who can save us. As Christians we are mangers or stewards of God’s things. All that we have belongs to God. Our money, homes, land, possessions, and time all belong to God. We are not the owners. God is the owner. We are stewards of His things. And so, we don’t put our trust in the things that God gives us to manage. But we trust in the one who gives us these things. We trust in the Lord. He is the one who is good. He is the One who loves us. And He is the one who provides for us. We can be generous with the things that God gives us to manage because we know that it is the Lord Himself who gives us what we need.
And so, know everything falls into place. The Lord is teaching us that we have been freed up to use the money that He has given us to manage for the purpose of building up the Kingdom of God. That is what Jesus is referring to in verse nine. “And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails, they may receive you into the eternal dwellings”. He is saying that we have been called to use money to further God’s kingdom. We all have money. Use the money, says Jesus, to support the mission of the church. There will be people in heaven who will be there and welcome you and to thank you because God used your offering to get them there. He made it so that your money would have eternal returns. We support the mission of the church to bring others to God so that we can see them in heaven.
The Lord calls the unbelievers the sons of this world. They are more shrewd in this world because unbelievers only serve one god and that god is money. Believers often try to have it both ways – to serve both God and money. But it doesn’t work that way. Remember what Jesus said. “No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.” Jesus calls those who trust in Him, the children of light. He is speaking about those who trust in God above all other things.
There will be a temptation to take the money that God has given us to manage and make it a false god. But as we look to the words of Jesus, we see that the He has given us the money to use for eternal purposes. You will indeed use the money that God gave you to provide for yourself and your family, but this parable teaches that you also have a Christian responsibility to support – shrewdly and enthusiastically- the preaching of the Gospel.
But there is one more important point to be made. It is not as though you labor under a master who is hard and cruel, but rather one who is unusually generous. And whether you have been faithful in your use of money or have been less than faithful, your Master is still good. And in your case, He will see you through. Remember you are blessed because of the generosity of your Master.
You know who that is. Your Lord and Master is Jesus Christ. He loves you and forgives you. He gives you more than earthly wealth and goods. He gives you life and salvation through His death and resurrection. He gives you eternal life free of charge. You don’t do anything to get it. The Lord gives it to you because He is generous. Truly shrewd stewards are Christians who trust in the generosity of the Lord. Put your eggs in that basket. Look to the mercy of God in Christ Jesus. You are going to be okay. Your master is generous. He loves you indeed. Amen.